Modbook Pro reaction has “exceeded expectations,” to ship in November

US customers can now preorder the Franken-Mac made into a drawing tablet.

The Modbook Pro—the third-party Mac "tablet" created by Axiotron and recently relaunched by Modbook Inc.—will begin shipping to US buyers in November. The company announced on Wednesday that preorders were officially open for the OS X tablet, which can be customized with a Core i7 processor, up to 16GB of RAM, an SSD with up to 480GB of storage, and even a Windows 7 install. While the suggested retail price for the base Modbook Pro seems uncomfortably high at $3,499, Modbook Inc. CEO Andreas Haas says that customer interest is through the roof.

"The customer reaction to the Modbook Pro has exceeded our expectations by far. In particular, there has been a huge amount of interest from artists and creative professionals who seem to like our vision for the Modbook Pro [as] the most powerful portable tool to increase their productivity," Haas told Ars. "Because interest has been so much higher than expected, we will be focusing all our energies on ramping up production this fall to reduce wait times for the Modbook Pro as much and as quickly as possible."

The original Modbook was introduced to the public in 2008, but Axiotron quickly found itself mired in capital and economic problems following the collapse of the US financial system that year. The modified MacBook-turned-drawing-tablet largely fell off the radar until this year, when Haas left Axiotron to create his own company so he could continue to fulfill his dream of creating the Modbook Pro. The 2012 device shares the same concept as the 2008 version, but Haas' new company made a number of modifications to the original physical design to be more tightly integrated—in addition to being easier for artists to use.

"I wanted to make a pen-based Mac ever since I worked at Apple. I remember there was a test device, and Andy Warhol had an opportunity to look at it, and he just loved it. That's what I wanted to do," Haas told Ars in June this year. "The pen went to the Newton, and then that went away. I wanted to bring back this device for artists because of how I saw Andy using it. And once the Modbook came out, we started hearing from people who use it in the same way."

The day has finally arrived for interested buyers to begin ordering their Modbook Pros, though the devices won't begin shipping to US customers until "mid-November." Haas also warned that the company anticipates demand will exceed the Modbook's production capacity, meaning that the lead time for fulfilling Modbook Pro orders may extend into December and beyond.

"We've tried to make the order process as fair as possible: first come, first served," Haas told Ars on Wednesday. "Those who order the earliest will be the first to get their Modbook Pro beginning in November. We will also provide progress updates to our customers during the build process of their individual Modbook Pro systems so they can plan accordingly."

What about non-US customers? The company says it hopes to bring the new product to the US market first before tackling "the challenges posed by the international marketplace." That doesn't mean an international rollout isn't in the cards, though—Haas says there will be more information for customers outside the US in the coming months.

If you're still wondering why someone would spend $3,500+ on a modified Mac with a drawing screen over, say, an iPad, Haas has an answer for that. He told us in June that he sees the two products as existing in parallel markets, with current iPhone and iPad users being "future Modbook Pro users." In addition to being much larger, with a larger drawing area, the Modbook Pro has a lot more horsepower—not to mention a lot more RAM—which is beneficial to creative professionals.

"Almost everyone has an iPad or iPhone. I wouldn't want to live without it. But as a company, we are looking at a very distinct niche. The creative industry does not have a product that meets their need to draw on a real computer's screen and have it be portable," he said. "It's just not out there."

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Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

Then you haven't been paying attention. Windows 8 (*NOT* Windows RT) certification requires that the OEM ship the device with the UEFI requiring a signed bootloader ("Secure Boot") as a default configuration, but it also requires that OEM allow the user to disable Secure Boot.

As a big fan and user of Tablet PCs, I said some time ago that it would likely take Apple to invent the concept again to be a success.

Nobody loves Tablet PCs. Everybody thinks they're way overpriced. And what to use them for anyways, at the size and weight of a normal laptop, when you can have an iPad...

Enter Modbook.Except for some people of which most don't seem to get why this is in no way comparable to a touch screen device, everybody says this is great and just a little too pricey. Wow, such a great idea.

I really hopes this is a success. I don't care if it really is Apple or just some third party, but if the Tablet PC gets reinvented there might finally be more and better models coming around.

Author, why did you fail to mention that Apple will sue this out of existence?

Probably because the company is buying an actual MacBook Pro 13" then just moding the hell out of it. Does Apple really want to tell everyone who buys there stuff that they are NOT allowed to mod their computers?

If Psystar had done something similar, which would have ruined their market of undercutting Apple itself, they would probably still be around.

Enter Modbook.Except for some people of which most don't seem to get why this is in no way comparable to a touch screen device, everybody says this is great and just a little too pricey. Wow, such a great idea.

Just "a little"? This is easily 2 times more expensive than the old Windows pen and tablet computers. How is it better in any way, besides having much more power (hooray for the march of progress) and being blessed with fruity goodness?

Because it's a hardware mod to an *existing* apple product. It requires a full mac laptop to be built. Doctrine of first sale protects them - they are essentially "reselling" you a macbook with modifications.

They might still get sued since it is a derivative product unless they have some form of wholesale agreement with Apple.

Lacking such an agreement, Apple could easily say it is not their hardware in the end, and as such the OSX licenses are invalid.

Citation Needed. If I buy a product, I'm free to resell it. This is not true for software, but you receive a licence to OSX by purchasing the MBP from Apple, and that licence transfers to a second owner. The fact that they have replaced the case of the MBP does not invalidate the licence any more than integrating an ipad into a home automation system, turnning an ipad into a manual for a vehicle (see Volkswagen Equus), or other application does.

Apple *could* sue in the hope that the company couldn't afford to defend itself, but IMHO they would lose in the end, and worse, the company could easily change the model to "Buy a 13.3" MBP, ship it to this address" system and still crank these things out.

Apple isn't losing anything here. They are still getting the same amount for hardware that they would have otherwise. It would be like apple suing a dude putting together an integrated gaming chair that had a spot for a MBP in it - they're just buying the MBP for you instead of you providing it yourself.

Just "a little"? This is easily 2 times more expensive than the old Windows pen and tablet computers. How is it better in any way, besides having much more power (hooray for the march of progress) and being blessed with fruity goodness?

Old? You mean as old as the Lenovo X230 tablet, the Fujitsu T902 or the, still Sandy Bridge, HP 2760p?Or old as in slates only? Like the Motion J3500 or the Samsung Series 7? Yeah, that's still Sandy Bridge...

I personally wouldn't buy one. I would preffer to use a Cintiq, but we've known of this modbook since before the iPad came into the market. Hell, I think it was since before the iPhone...

The Cintiq is great for people who do art for a living. I just wanna sit on the lounge in an ad break for my favourite sports game, a glass of beer in one hand and a tablet running Xcode or a Bash prompt in the other.

I use the iPad that way now, and it's great. But I'd like to have something less user friendly and more unix geek friendly. Unfortunately these prices are out of my reach.

falsoman wrote:

Point being. This is definitely not the same as Phystar. What the guys at modbook have been doing is completely legal and they have even presented this stuff at MacWorld expo or the WWDC if memory serves me well. They have been selling complete notebooks, just modified.

I agree, it's nothing like Pystar. But I do still think "Modbook Pro" is a bit too close to "MacBook Pro" for a device that is not made by Apple but does build on their platform. I guess it depends how many they sell.

Modbook was clearer, Apple doesn't own the letter "M" and they don't own "book". But when you add the "Pro" to the end, it starts to get a bit less clear. I can see some people assuming this is made by Apple, especially since it runs their software.

Why would I get this over an iPad, Surface Pro, or even Samsung Slate? All are way cheaper and just as capable....

Cheaper yes, but not as capable. I own an iPad, use it almost every day. If I had a few thousand bucks to spare, I would buy one of these Modbooks.

This premise is false. The iPad is an integrated from the ground up touch device. The Modbook is a kludge of touch and stylus usage on top of OSX which is clearly not designed for touch use. Even Windows XP has better provisions for touch use than OSX. This becomes more true as in Windows XP, Vista, and 7 you can change the window metrics individually to better suit touch. This is only magnified once you include TIP and other tablet PC provisions present in Windows not available in OSX.

Ultimately, an OSX device without support for iOS touch methods and software is far less capable compared to Windows. Again, the upgrade path of Windows 8, a touch designed OS, becomes relevant. On OSX, you're stuck with add-on software for supporting touch as mouse events and art digitizers (penenabled) which have had significantly more development and maturity in Windows environments.

This premise is false. The iPad is an integrated from the ground up touch device. The Modbook is a kludge of touch and stylus usage on top of OSX which is clearly not designed for touch use.

Agreed, but I'm a unix programmer. I don't need anybody to hold my hand with something user friendly. Give me a blinking curser on a full screen of text, and I can get serious work done. Give me Mac OS X and some kind of input, even a "kludge" input, and I'll be really happy.

aaronb1138 wrote:

Even Windows XP has better provisions for touch use than OSX. This becomes more true as in Windows XP, Vista, and 7 you can change the window metrics individually to better suit touch. This is only magnified once you include TIP and other tablet PC provisions present in Windows not available in OSX.

Ultimately, an OSX device without support for iOS touch methods and software is far less capable compared to Windows. Again, the upgrade path of Windows 8, a touch designed OS, becomes relevant. On OSX, you're stuck with add-on software for supporting touch as mouse events and art digitizers (penenabled) which have had significantly more development and maturity in Windows environments.

Have you ever used a mac with apple's 5 inch trackpad? There is no "ad-on software", the system has out of the box support for a long list of gestures, including complex ones that require four fingers at once. And there is also ad-on software you can include to make it even more powerful.

Trust me, OS X absolutely does support touch. I have used my mac all day long at work for months at a time without ever clicking a mouse button. When I have RSI issues, I switch to a trackpad and I set it to convert taps to click/click-hold/right-click/click-drag/vertical-scroll/horizontal-scroll/z-axis-scroll, along with a bunch of more advanced gestures for window management and browser history navigation.

The real problem will be the lack of a keyboard. But after using an iPad for years, I now know just how rarely it is actually needed.

I use VPN software to connect to my mac from my iPad all the time. I love it. But the screen is too small, I have to constantly zoom in and out by about 30% or else text is hard to read and buttons are hard to click. This modbook seems to solve that.

This premise is false. The iPad is an integrated from the ground up touch device. The Modbook is a kludge of touch and stylus usage on top of OSX which is clearly not designed for touch use.

Agreed, but I'm a unix programmer. I don't need anybody to hold my hand with something user friendly. Give me a blinking curser on a full screen of text, and I can get serious work done. Give me Mac OS X and some kind of input, even a "kludge" input, and I'll be really happy.

aaronb1138 wrote:

Even Windows XP has better provisions for touch use than OSX. This becomes more true as in Windows XP, Vista, and 7 you can change the window metrics individually to better suit touch. This is only magnified once you include TIP and other tablet PC provisions present in Windows not available in OSX.

Ultimately, an OSX device without support for iOS touch methods and software is far less capable compared to Windows. Again, the upgrade path of Windows 8, a touch designed OS, becomes relevant. On OSX, you're stuck with add-on software for supporting touch as mouse events and art digitizers (penenabled) which have had significantly more development and maturity in Windows environments.

Have you ever used a mac with apple's 5 inch trackpad? There is no "ad-on software", the system has out of the box support for a long list of gestures, including complex ones that require four fingers at once. And there is also ad-on software you can include to make it even more powerful.

Trust me, OS X absolutely does support touch. I have used my mac all day long at work for months at a time without ever clicking a mouse button. When I have RSI issues, I switch to a trackpad and I set it to convert taps to click/click-hold/right-click/click-drag/vertical-scroll/horizontal-scroll/z-axis-scroll, along with a bunch of more advanced gestures for window management and browser history navigation.

The real problem will be the lack of a keyboard. But after using an iPad for years, I now know just how rarely it is actually needed.

I use VPN software to connect to my mac from my iPad all the time. I love it. But the screen is too small, I have to constantly zoom in and out by about 30% or else text is hard to read and buttons are hard to click. This modbook seems to solve that.

Touchpad support is not the same as touchscreen support. Comparing iPad iOS to OSX touch support is pure false logic at it's finest. Also, with the screen size of the Modbook, you are still looking at menus too small for touch input to be effective, even worse without pinch to zoom provided by your VPN client. Also, I think you mean VNC, not VPN. Must be the onscreen keyboard.

If you don't have some need for a keyboard or good handwriting recognition or true stylus support, then you are probably within the consumption use case. In that case, the iPad is one of the best devices. Using a MBP for consumption device duty is wasteful, but hey, it's your money, go waste it.

As a big fan and user of Tablet PCs, I said some time ago that it would likely take Apple to invent the concept again to be a success.

Nobody loves Tablet PCs. Everybody thinks they're way overpriced. And what to use them for anyways, at the size and weight of a normal laptop, when you can have an iPad...

Enter Modbook.Except for some people of which most don't seem to get why this is in no way comparable to a touch screen device, everybody says this is great and just a little too pricey. Wow, such a great idea.

I really hopes this is a success. I don't care if it really is Apple or just some third party, but if the Tablet PC gets reinvented there might finally be more and better models coming around.

Again, more false logic. This device is not receiving support and integration from the manufacturer of the OS, which is what matters. OSX is ages behind Windows in touchscreen touch support. This would be a very different discussion if Apple was making a tablet PC OSX which incorporated the touch features of iOS. This is not the case.

As I have said before, Apple is one of the best integrators of hardware and software, but they aren't the ones doing this integration. Apple has the worst track record of any company at supporting other parties integrating their hardware or software for other use cases than their intents. How is this so very difficult to add up?

How does this device warrant fandom from people who have never used or examined it at 3x the price of a Samsung Series 7 Slate, a proven tablet device with similar hardware specifications, and with support of it's use cases from both the hardware and software manufacturers relevant to it's creation and an upgrade path to an OS optimized for greater touch utilization?

This would be like porting Android to the iPhone 5 with crappy drivers and saying it was the best Apple product ever and the best Android device period.

Because it's a hardware mod to an *existing* apple product. It requires a full mac laptop to be built. Doctrine of first sale protects them - they are essentially "reselling" you a macbook with modifications.

They might still get sued since it is a derivative product unless they have some form of wholesale agreement with Apple.

Lacking such an agreement, Apple could easily say it is not their hardware in the end, and as such the OSX licenses are invalid.

Citation Needed. If I buy a product, I'm free to resell it. This is not true for software, but you receive a licence to OSX by purchasing the MBP from Apple, and that licence transfers to a second owner. The fact that they have replaced the case of the MBP does not invalidate the licence any more than integrating an ipad into a home automation system, turnning an ipad into a manual for a vehicle (see Volkswagen Equus), or other application does.

Apple *could* sue in the hope that the company couldn't afford to defend itself, but IMHO they would lose in the end, and worse, the company could easily change the model to "Buy a 13.3" MBP, ship it to this address" system and still crank these things out.

No citation necessary. I was quite clear this is a potential legal situation. The fact remains that they (Axiotron) are selling a product with their own name and components with OSX installed. I couldn't buy a UEFI ROM chip for a MBP and sell Dell i5 laptops with OSX installed. As soon as they removed and altered parts of the MBPs they are buying from Apple, it ceased being an Apple product, and became an Axiotron product. The OSX license is quite clear that it is only licensed for use on Apple hardware. The object as a whole is no longer Apple hardware, and as such, invalidates the license. Apple may use this legal minutia as they wish, but this is the reality. Do you think Apple will allow these buyers to purchase AppleCare for the non-altered hardware and OSX software?

There are all kinds of critical thinking failure going on throughout this thread (yes I see the opening I made, and I stand by my statement within its context).

Further, the previous time Apple allowed the Modbook was before they were a major player in the tablet market at the precipice of loosing their first place spot in the next 12 months. These pressures, much as similar ones which caused Apple to pull their support of Power Computing, can easily lead to legal action on Apple's part. Again, Apple has a clearly defined history or such behavior within the market.

Again, more false logic. This device is not receiving support and integration from the manufacturer of the OS, which is what matters. OSX is ages behind Windows in touchscreen touch support. This would be a very different discussion if Apple was making a tablet PC OSX which incorporated the touch features of iOS. This is not the case. [...]

What does this have to with what I posted?

My reasoning is that the half eaten fruit, in any form, lures people with money and is giving the idea a positive reception. No Apple hating here, but the brand is hip, no question. And if it turns out that such a device can lure customers, I'd expect the PC side manufacturers to put a bit more focus on this device class.Whether the Modbook itself is good for anything I don't care about. I neither would pay that money nor want to have a Mac.

I personally wouldn't buy one. I would preffer to use a Cintiq, but we've known of this modbook since before the iPad came into the market. Hell, I think it was since before the iPhone...

The Cintiq is great for people who do art for a living. I just wanna sit on the lounge in an ad break for my favourite sports game, a glass of beer in one hand and a tablet running Xcode or a Bash prompt in the other.

I use the iPad that way now, and it's great. But I'd like to have something less user friendly and more unix geek friendly. Unfortunately these prices are out of my reach.

falsoman wrote:

Point being. This is definitely not the same as Phystar. What the guys at modbook have been doing is completely legal and they have even presented this stuff at MacWorld expo or the WWDC if memory serves me well. They have been selling complete notebooks, just modified.

I agree, it's nothing like Pystar. But I do still think "Modbook Pro" is a bit too close to "MacBook Pro" for a device that is not made by Apple but does build on their platform. I guess it depends how many they sell.

Modbook was clearer, Apple doesn't own the letter "M" and they don't own "book". But when you add the "Pro" to the end, it starts to get a bit less clear. I can see some people assuming this is made by Apple, especially since it runs their software.

Ok. I definitely see your point there. Though as it has been previously mentioned, apparently they have had permission from Apple. However, since apparenlty you can only buy it online, a trademark dispute may be able to be avoided with a simple disclaimer.

And yes, I see the value in tablets for you, but I think this one in particular was designed specifically thinking of graphic artists. Hence the price and the input method. This basically makes it a powerful tablet where you can use photoshop, illustrator, painter and other presure sensitive apps with a digitizer.

I have to clarify, of course, that I'm saying what I think the main market for this could be, not a declaration of lack of value for anyone else.

Also, for whoever is wondering, OSX has had stylus input options since at least 10.4, where you could use a digitizer (I use an intuos) to write text by hand and it would change it to type, just like in windows XP talbet edition. The system also had other minor tablet friendly elements and an on-screen keyboard, but since i was not using it as a tablet, i haven't used that for years. Though for a normal laptop this was just so uncomfortable it wasn't worth it... specially since you can just use the regular keyboard to type faster.

Because it's a hardware mod to an *existing* apple product. It requires a full mac laptop to be built. Doctrine of first sale protects them - they are essentially "reselling" you a macbook with modifications.

They might still get sued since it is a derivative product unless they have some form of wholesale agreement with Apple.

Lacking such an agreement, Apple could easily say it is not their hardware in the end, and as such the OSX licenses are invalid.

Citation Needed. If I buy a product, I'm free to resell it. This is not true for software, but you receive a licence to OSX by purchasing the MBP from Apple, and that licence transfers to a second owner. The fact that they have replaced the case of the MBP does not invalidate the licence any more than integrating an ipad into a home automation system, turnning an ipad into a manual for a vehicle (see Volkswagen Equus), or other application does.

Apple *could* sue in the hope that the company couldn't afford to defend itself, but IMHO they would lose in the end, and worse, the company could easily change the model to "Buy a 13.3" MBP, ship it to this address" system and still crank these things out.

No citation necessary. I was quite clear this is a potential legal situation. The fact remains that they (Axiotron) are selling a product with their own name and components with OSX installed. I couldn't buy a UEFI ROM chip for a MBP and sell Dell i5 laptops with OSX installed. As soon as they removed and altered parts of the MBPs they are buying from Apple, it ceased being an Apple product, and became an Axiotron product. The OSX license is quite clear that it is only licensed for use on Apple hardware. The object as a whole is no longer Apple hardware, and as such, invalidates the license. Apple may use this legal minutia as they wish, but this is the reality. Do you think Apple will allow these buyers to purchase AppleCare for the non-altered hardware and OSX software?

There are all kinds of critical thinking failure going on throughout this thread (yes I see the opening I made, and I stand by my statement within its context).

Further, the previous time Apple allowed the Modbook was before they were a major player in the tablet market at the precipice of loosing their first place spot in the next 12 months. These pressures, much as similar ones which caused Apple to pull their support of Power Computing, can easily lead to legal action on Apple's part. Again, Apple has a clearly defined history or such behavior within the market.

You keep missing the essential point: this is Apple hardware.

And the sales, while off the charts for a niche product, are peanuts for a mainstream product.

This is why Apple is great, and the Windows 8 frankentablets just won't do it for a lot of the niche. Apple customers want OSX on a stylus-based tablet? Apple users make one! It's a niche, and it'll stay a niche until Moore's law can make this a $1000 thing instead of a $3500 thing. For now, this is pretty rad, if you can afford one!

Apple WILL care. Bottom line, they will view this as someone taking money from their pockets. They will see it as an untapped market belonging to THEM.

Seriously, the one thing anyone here should know is that if anyone is going to be making money off Apple products, it is Apple and Apple alone.

Read the other comments. This company has been around for a while, and used to work with Apple to sell these. Apple won't care. You and others have no idea what you're talking about. I wouldn't even be surprised if some apple engineers helped give them pointers on how to make this happen.

Your perception (or gross misperception) of apple is based on the caricature that the Android fanboys have painted (or ms fanboys of you're older).

And you realize that tons of people have made millions off apple products that aren't apple? Would you even know who Rovio was if it weren't for Apple...?

I would also like to note Apple prefers total and complete control of their name and products. If someone makes a product like this and it was confused with being an actual Apple product, which is arguably possible, it could tarnish the brand if it were an inferior product.

Apple prides itself on image. I would guess the Apple image is worth billions of dollars. That is worth protecting with a team of bloodthirsty lawyers. If this kind of product exists, it will be done by Apple or by nobody. Apple wouldn't want to be made to look like they were incompetent and failed to serve a needed market.

I'm sorry but reading the other comments doesn't change my mind. As for the past, Apple or otherwise, let's keep that in the history books where it belongs.

You make gross misperceptions about me if you think to stereotype type me based off a couple comments. I make up my own mind, by looking at all the facts, not by adhering to others ideas.

As for what I have said, I am sticking to it. Apple would either A) make it itself, as there is a market for it and therefore profits to be made or B) prevent it from being made, as there is nothing to gain and something to lose. It makes total business sense and the shoe fits for the path Apple is currently on.

Seriously though, why the hell are you bringing up Angry Birds? We are talking about hardware, or at least I am.

Enter Modbook.Except for some people of which most don't seem to get why this is in no way comparable to a touch screen device, everybody says this is great and just a little too pricey. Wow, such a great idea.

Just "a little"? This is easily 2 times more expensive than the old Windows pen and tablet computers. How is it better in any way, besides having much more power (hooray for the march of progress) and being blessed with fruity goodness?

Not to mention between October 2012 and early 2013, the market will be flooded with $800ish Clover Trail devices sporting Wacom or N-Trig digitizers and $1000ish Ivy Bridge devices sporting the same. Two years ago, the digitizer stylus was nearly extinct. With Windows 8 it's undergoing a renaissance, so paying over $3,500 just because something has a digitizer is impossible to justify.

Or is this something along the lines of, "You want to buy a BMW and have it modified? Sounds like an advertisement for Mercedes." [car makes used as an example only and not analogous]

Imagine if someone offered to take a BMW 5-Series and turn it into a pickup truck for a total-out-the-door price of $150,000. And someone says "this whole situation is like an advertisement for the Ford F-Series." Which, fully loaded with amenities, is still a tiny fraction of the price. And it's *a better pickup truck* at the end of the day because it was designed from day one to be a pickup, instead of being a luxury sedan transformed into a pickup by a mod shop.

Too bad there isn't a kit option. I've got a MBP that's I'm likely to replace soon. If I could order just the "Modbook Pro Build Kit" and build it myself I would. But I'm not willing to pay for someone to do the same to a new MBP.

I get what you're pointing at. But calling the win8 devices "franken" in comparison to a laptop that gets disassembled and then reassembled with some custom parts by a third party is funny

@ MitlovYou don't get what the Modbook is intended for. The wast majority of the Windows 8 tablets will likely be completely unsuited for creative purposes. I know some artists who use tablet pcs for their work and they're after some things we likely won't see.They pretty much all say that the N-Trig digitizers are next to worthless for art purposes and I know some really tried. The Atom based systems lack enough power for a lot of the software they wanna use. I doubt Clover Trail will be that much of a difference.

The next things are physical size and displays. While most somehow get along with the mostly 12" models and the one remaining 13,3" option there is from Fujitsu, many would want something bigger, like 14" or maybe even 15.6". This partly also has to do with the fact that the Wacom digitizers get less responsive to the sides and the edges, but it's mainly because drawing is just better if your working area is more the size of a sheet of paper and not the size of your grocery list. The artist community using tablet pcs is also the by far most verbose I have seen when it comes to criticizing the trend towards 16:9 displays. Some of those people would sacrifice a goat for 16:10 and give their first born son for 4:3.The resolution also plays a role. Something like a retina display would be awesome for them, because it would bring the medium closer to paper, where you have more visual feedback about your strokes. Also, the currently available tablet pcs have a very limited resolution. 1280x800 or 1366x768 are all you get with today's models, except for the Fujitsu T902. And you guess that some were truly happy when Fujitsu's specs said they will put a 1600x900 panel in there. Just think a second about things like toolbars, which you need when you only have half a dozen hardware keys.

The price tag might keep you away, and me too, but if you want a tablet above 13,3" for art purposes, there simply is nothing else you can get. If you are tied to OSX for some reason, that's even the only tablet you can get.You simply don't understand which group this device does target and why it does not have a real competitor there. Windows 8 is also unlikely to get us a something in a similar size with a Wacom digitizer and a good display.$3,500 is crazy for a modded laptop, but for a mobile canvas it's a different story.

Because it's a hardware mod to an *existing* apple product. It requires a full mac laptop to be built. Doctrine of first sale protects them - they are essentially "reselling" you a macbook with modifications.

[quote="Hattori HANZo]The next things are physical size and displays. While most somehow get along with the mostly 12" models and the one remaining 13,3" option there is from Fujitsu, many would want something bigger, like 14" or maybe even 15.6". This partly also has to do with the fact that the Wacom digitizers get less responsive to the sides and the edges, but it's mainly because drawing is just better if your working area is more the size of a sheet of paper and not the size of your grocery list. The artist community using tablet pcs is also the by far most verbose I have seen when it comes to criticizing the trend towards 16:9 displays. Some of those people would sacrifice a goat for 16:10 and give their first born son for 4:3.The resolution also plays a role. Something like a retina display would be awesome for them, because it would bring the medium closer to paper, where you have more visual feedback about your strokes. Also, the currently available tablet pcs have a very limited resolution. 1280x800 or 1366x768 are all you get with today's models, except for the Fujitsu T902. And you guess that some were truly happy when Fujitsu's specs said they will put a 1600x900 panel in there. Just think a second about things like toolbars, which you need when you only have half a dozen hardware keys.[/quote]

Don't get me started on the switch to 16:9. I'd gladly sacrifice resolution for at least a 16:10 display. Larger screens on tabletPCs would be great as well.

it's essentially a more than $2K markup on a $1400 machine build (before discounts), to add a high quality touchscreen while eliminating options for a 3 year warranty and replacing it with one.

a year, maybe 18 months from now, apple will have full OS X tablets with 256 level pen input for artists. They'll likely be the exact same mac ultrabook bases, with a swivel (or even removable) screen, and the option likely won;t be more than a $400-=500 upcharge vs the exact same machine without the screen (because even thats a lot more than thepart costs).

If you feel you HAVE to have this, NOW (and carrying a wacom tabet around with your ultrabook is not good enough), by all means, a fool and his money are easily parted, but man, if you can wait, WAIT! The market is going to drop fron under this company very soon, and then they'll be done, and whatever warranty uoui might have will be worthless, and its resale will be less than a comperable mac.

Have you ever used a mac with apple's 5 inch trackpad? There is no "ad-on software", the system has out of the box support for a long list of gestures, including complex ones that require four fingers at once. And there is also ad-on software you can include to make it even more powerful.

I think the iPad has sold more trackpads than any other factor.

After using the iPad for a couple months, sitting at the desktop Mac seemed so clunky with the mouse. There's certain detail things I want the mouse for (writing and editing text/code in particular) but I got a trackpad for browsing and other activities. Fortunately, you can have both mouse and trackpad active at the same time. Just reach for the one you need at any given moment.

Yeah, long list of gestures. There's gestures on the Mac now that I sorely miss when I'm on the iPad.

Soooooo...why would anyone buy this instead of the new Sony Vaio Duo 11, which has a 1080p screen, an Ivy Bridge i5, a digitizer pen, slider keyboard, and an x86 OS actually designed with touch in mind?

I've yet to encounter an X86 OS that was actually designed with touch in mind.

* Android did a decent job of bolting touch ontop of a blackberry clone, but since it started as a blackberry clone, it wasn't *DESIGNED* with touch in mind.

* Windows 8 has a decent touch UI for a completely different shell with no apps. You have to switch to the old mouse optimized shell to do something as simple as change screen resolution, or run any of your existing windows apps. Not to mention that it hasn't shipped yet.

* Windows 7 has some multitouch APIs, but the UI is mouse driven. Some third parties (HP) have shipped shells that are touch optimized, but you have the same software problem as Windows 8.

* OS X has ink well. Not much else I can say about touch optimization here.

* iOS is the only OS *DESIGNED* from the ground up with touch in mind that i can think of, but it only runs on ARM.

So I'm left wondering what x86 OS you are referring to that was 'actually designed with touch' in mind...

The iPad has 1 level of sensitivity and it requires a cross section of contact the size of a pencil eraser. What form of ignorance are you speaking from exactly. The iPad will likely never adopt a stylus.